'Fever' Raises $3 Million, Hopes to Heat Up NYC Party Scene

It'll still be up to you to haul yourself off the couch.

Fever will make you cool, like these guys on the app’s Instagram feed. (Instagram)

It’s a good day for Fever, the event discovery app that launched last year in Madrid. The company announced today that their service is now available in NYC, and that they’ve just raised $3 million in funding, to boot.

We made our way down to Tribeca last week, where the Fever team was hosting a launch party at Paul’s Baby Grand, part of the Tribeca Grand Hotel. There, we grabbed a drink with Pep Gomez, Fever’s 21-year-old founder.

Mr. Gomez, originally from Barcelona, was only 14 when he created his first company — an online service that helped musicians organize their tours. That company wasn’t successful, so at 16, he moved to San Francisco, where he worked for a private VC fund with Bernardo Hernández, then a Managing Director of Product Management at Google. Two years later, Mr. Gomez moved back to Spain, and got the idea to start Fever.

“I found this pain of, ‘I want to do something, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what’s cool in the city’,” Mr. Gomez told Betabeat. “Also, I would love to know, ‘Where is this girl that I like going tonight?’ So I decided to found Fever — I’m very happy.”

Some Fever screenshots. (Screengrab: iTunes)

Mr. Gomez took out his phone and gave us an impromptu demo of Fever. The app asks users to choose three hashtags — like #geek or #music — to define themselves. Then, it delivers them a curated list of upcoming events based on their personal interests. Fever also lets users browse events based on what their friends, or other notable influencers, are going to. Once users decide on an event, they can pay for tickets straight through the app.

“I think it’s going to work way, way better in New York,” Mr. Gomez said. “New York is a city where there are too many things to do. It’s difficult. Everything’s moving so fast. You have this fear of missing out — this stress.”

We wondered how Fever differed from similar event discovery apps, like YPlan — besides the fact that it doesn’t sound like a brand of birth control. Mr. Gomez said Fever stands out because it doesn’t just try to sell you last-minute or discounted tickets; instead, he said it focuses more on the “social element,” and really tries to show you events you and your friends will enjoy most.

For those who actually do fun things in the physical world and don’t spend their weekend nights watching HGTV and the Food Network, Fever is available for free for iPhone and Android.

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